The Christian boy going to school.

It is on exactly the same principle that discipline and trial is useful, to enable us fully to understand our characters; and in order to avail ourselves of this advantage, we should watch ourselves most carefully, when placed in any new or untried situation, to see how our moral powers are affected by it. We must notice every imperfection and every deficiency which the trial brings to our view.

2. Discipline and trial are the means of improvement. Besides giving us an insight into our characters, they will, if properly improved, enable us to advance in the attainment of every excellence. I ought however, perhaps, to say they may be made the means of improvement, rather than that they actually will be so. steam-boat was in a better condition after the first day's trial than before; but it was because the engineer was attentive and watchful, doing his utmost to avail himself of every opportunity to increase the smoothness and the power of her motion. So with human trials.

The

See yonder child going to school. His slate is under his arm, and he is going this day to make an attempt to understand long division. He is young, and the lesson, though it may seem simple to us, is difficult to him. He knows what difficulty and perplexity is before him, and he would, perhaps, under ordinary circumstances, shrink from the hard task. But he is a Christian. He has asked forgiveness for his past sins in the name of Jesus Christ, and is endeavoring to live in such a manner as to please his Father above. He knows that God might easily have formed his mind so that mathematical truths and processes might be plain to him at once, and that he has not done so, for the very purpose of giving him a useful discipline by the trial which the effort to learn necessarily brings

He says therefore to himself as he walks along to his school-room, "My lesson to-day is not only to do this

The moral and arithmetical question.

sum, but to learn to be patient and faithful in duty, and I must learn the arithmetical and the moral lesson together. I will try to do it. I will begin my work, looking to God for help, and I will go on through it, if I can, with a calm and quiet spirit, so as to learn not only to divide a number, but to persevere in duty." With this spirit he sits down to his work, and watches himself narrowly, that he may check every rising of impatience, and obtain, by means of the very difficulties that now try him, a greater self-command than he ever before possessed. In fact he takes a strong interest in the very difficulty, because he is interested in the moral experiment which it enables him to make.

Now, when such a spirit as this is cherished, and the mind is under its influence in all the difficulties and trials of life, how rapidly must the heart advance in every excellence! There certainly can be no way by which a young person can so effectually acquire a patient and persevering spirit, as by meeting real difficulties with such a state of mind as I have described. They who have been trained in the hard school of difficulty and trial, almost always possess a firmness of character which it is vain to look for elsewhere. There must, however, be effort on the part of the individual to improve the trial, or he will grow worse instead of better by it. Learning simple division in schools is, perhaps, as often a means of promoting an impatient and fretful spirit as the contrary. It is the disposition on the part of the individual that determines which effect is to be the result. Some men, by the misfortunes and crosses of life, are made misanthropes; others, by the same disappointments and sufferings, are made humble and happy Christians, with feelings kindly disposed toward their fellow and calmly submissive toward God.

men,

The object, then, which the Creator had in view in arranging the circumstances of probation and discipline

Practical directions.

That we may un

in which we are placed, is two-fold: derstand, and that we may improve our characters. We are to learn different lessons from the different circumstances and situations in which we are placed, but we are to learn some lesson from all. God might easily have so formed the earth, and so arranged our connection with it, as to save us all the vicissitudes, and trials, and changes which we now experience. But he has made this world a state of discipline and trial for us, that we may have constant opportunities to call into active exercise every Christian grace. The future world is the home for which we are intended, and we are placed on trial here, that we may prepare for it; and the suffering and sorrow which we experience on the way are small evils, compared to the glorious results which we may hope for there. But I must come to the practical directions which I intended to present.

1. Consider every thing that befalls you as coming in the providence of God, and intended as a part of the system of discipline and trial through which you are to pass. This will help you to bear every thing patiently. An irreligious man is on a journey requiring special haste, and finds himself delayed by bad traveling or stormy weather, until a steam-boat, which he had intended to have taken, has sailed, and left him behind. He spends the twenty-four hours during which he has to wait for the next boat, in fretting and worrying himself over his disappointment-in useless complaints against the driver for not having brought him on more rapidly-in wishing that the weather or the traveling had been better-or in thinking how much his business must suffer by the delay. The Christian, on the other hand, hears the intelligence, that the boat has left him, with a quiet spirit; and even if he was hastening to the bedside of a dying child, he would spend the intervening day in composure and peace, saying, "The Lord has ordered this. It is to try

God's providence universal.

Losses of every kind from God.

me. Heavenly Father, give me grace to stand the trial."

I say, the Christian would feel thus; I should, perhaps, have said, he ought to feel thus. Christians are very much accustomed to consider all the great trials and sufferings of life as coming from God, and as intended to try them, but they fret and vex themselves unceasingly, in regard to the little difficulties which, in the ordinary walk of life, they have to encounter-especially in what is connected with the misconduct of others. You lend a valuable book, and it is returned to you spoiled: the prints are soiled and worn; the leaves are turned down in some places, and loosened in others; the binding is defaced, and the back is broken. Now you ought not to stand looking at your spoiled volume, lamenting again and again the misfortune, and making yourself miserable for hours by your fretfulness and displeasure against the individual who was its cause. He was indeed to blame, but if you did your duty in lending the book, as without doubt you did, you are in no sense responsible, and you do wrong to make yourself miserable about it. The occurrence comes to you in the providence of God, and is intended as a trial. He watches you to see how you bear it. If you meet it with a proper spirit, and learn the lesson of patience and forbearance which it brings, that spoiled book will do you more good than any splendid volume crowded with prints, adorned with gilded binding, and preserved in a locked cabinet for you for twenty years.

So with loss of every kind, whether it comes in the form of a broken piece of china or a counterfeit ten-dollar bill found in the pocket-book, or the loss of your whole property by the misfortunes of a partner or the pressure of the times. No matter what is the magnitude or the smallness of the loss-no matter whether it comes from the culpable negligence or fraud of another, or more directly from God, through the medium of flood or fire,

The careless engineer.

or the lightning of heaven; so far as it is a loss affecting you, it comes in the providence of God, and is intended as a trial. If you are really interested in what ought to be the great business of life, your growth in grace, you will find that such trials will help you to understand your own heart, and to train it up to a proper action under the government of God, more than any thing beside.

2. Make it your aim to be continually learning the lessons which God by these various trials is endeavoring to teach you. Every day is a day of discipline and trial. Ask yourself every night then, "What progress have I made to-day?" Suppose the engineer, in the case of the steam-boat on trial, to which I have several times alluded, had neglected altogether the operation of the machinery when his boat was first put to the test. Suppose that instead of examining minutely and carefully the structure and the action of the parts, with a view to removing difficulties, rectifying defects, and supplying deficiencies, he had been seated quietly upon the deck enjoying the sail. He might have been gazing at the scenery of the shore, or in vanity and self-complacency enjoying the admiration which he imagined those who stood upon the wharf were feeling for the degree of success which he had already attained. While he is thus neglecting his duty, evils without number, and fraught with incalculable consequences, are working below. The defects in his machinery are not discovered and not remedied; its weak. nesses remain unobserved and unrepaired; and if at last there should be intrusted to his care valuable property, nothing can reasonably be expected but its destruction.

Multitudes of men, and even great numbers of those who call themselves Christians, act the part of this infatuated engineer. God tells them that their moral powers are now on trial. He commands them to consider it their business here not to be engrossed in the objects of intèrest which surround them as they pass on through life,